This invention relates to method and apparatus for wrapping a coil of metal strip (hereinafter referred to as "metal coil"). Generally, a metal coil obtained by rolling a metal into a thin strip of sheet and winding this strip into a coil is shipped out as enclosed in a wrapping paper.
Wrapping a coil of thin steel sheet produced in a steel mill, for example, is effected by covering the inner peripheral surface of the coil with a wrapping paper, winding a wrapping paper of large width on the outer peripheral surface of the coil, and folding down toward the center of the coil the excess widths of the wrapping paper extruding from the opposite edges of the roll to cover the edge faces of the coil. The manual work of winding the wrapping paper of the excess widths accurately and tightly on the metal coil has proved to be difficult.
Mechanization of continuous winding work is easy. In contrast, mechanization of the work of winding a wrapping paper just once around the outer periphery of a coil is unexpectedly difficult and remains yet to be developed. The work, therefore, is still being performed by a troublesome manual procedure.